Kiaransali
Kiaransali is the drow deity of Slavery, Vengeance, and the Undead. Her symbol is the silver-ringed hand of a female drow.
Kiaransali manifests as a sinuous female drow, wearing only silver jewelry and silk veils. She wields Coldheart, a dagger that perpetually drips acid, and when it pleases her she dons the Mantle of Nightmares, a cloak of bones that causes magical fear in all who gaze upon its horrors.
Kiaransali manifests as a sinuous female drow, wearing only silver jewelry and silk veils. She wields Coldheart, a dagger that perpetually drips acid, and when it pleases her she dons the Mantle of Nightmares, a cloak of bones that causes magical fear in all who gaze upon its horrors.
Kiaransali dwells in the fortress of Kandelspire on the world of Guldor. Kandelspire was the last bastion of the dwarves on this world, which fell to Lolth's forces some decades before. Now it is haunted by the vengeful ghostly and undead remnants of the proud dwarven warriors who died fighting to the last. The Revenancer has entered this world through a portal in the Demonweb Pits and has made Kandelspire her home. There, she marshals her forces, building her strength in the hope of reconquering Orcus's realm.
Kiaransali forbids her worshipers from forgiving debts or slights of any kind. Payment, of some kind, is integral to any interaction. Kiaransali teaches that life itself is the greatest of all crimes, with enslavement in undeath the most fitting of punishments. Enslavement of the living is also a holy act. Worshipers of Kiaransali seek to take their wealth and slaves with them into the grave.
Worshippers of Kiaransali are slavers, morticians, torturers, executioners, and merchants. They are misers, meticulous in their record-keeping. They treat their servants as slaves, and treat their slaves without mercy. House Vae of Erelhei-Cinlu worships Kiaransali as their patron, although they have always believed her to be inferior to Lolth.
Priests of Kiaransali are known as yathrinshee. They not only work their slaves to death, but they reanimate their corpses so that they continue their labor. To venerate the Lady of the Dead, yathrinshee lie within their personal sarcophagi with their arms clasped together on their breasts. They favor loose black robes with hooded cowls stitched with ivory and bone. They wear gray skullcaps on their heads and thin silver rings on every finger except their thumbs. They spread the ashes of burnt corpses on their uncovered skin. Despite their miserly creeds, they are the first to offer bounties on escaped slaves and prisoners, and always pay in full.
Kiaransali's faithful have only one holiday, the Graverending, which they celebrate on the eve of the Winter Solstice. On that night, the White Banshee's clerics create as many undead as possible and send them to slay the living in an orgy of destruction. Clerics of Kiaransali also make observe minor devotions every month on no particular schedule.
Apotheosis
Kiaransalee, as she was originally known, was the mortal queen of a world called Threnody at least 30,000 years in the past. She was banished by her husband the king, and worked for centuries to raise an undead army to exact vengeance for this. When she was finally done, all life on her world was extinguished. Fleeing with her minions to the Abyss to escape the wrath of the Seldarine, she eventually became a demigoddess. At some point she was slighted by Orcus, though no one but her remembers the details.
In later years the goddess Lolth fell into the Abyss as well, capturing Kiaransalee in her twisted web. For millennia, the Lady of the Dead labored under Lolth's spidery shadow as the goddess of undeath and vengeance, capable of only small acts of rebellion.
The Death of Orcus
When the time seemed right, Kiaransalee ambushed Orcus in his own layer. Though Orcus was more powerful, he had grown complacent with the diminishment or imprisonment of his major rivals. The Vengeful Banshee managed to slay him with a blast of negative energy, casting his corpse into the Astral Plane. To ensure he could never return, she cast a spell that erased his name from all mortal records.
This dealt a major blow to the demonic forces in the Blood War, who suddenly lacked for the undead troops Orcus used to provide. Kiaransalee promised to provide similar troops in time, but still many demonic generals sought to return Orcus back to life.
The Priestess Wars
Centuries later, the Vengeful Banshee took advantage of chaos and civil war in the Vault of the Drow, defying Lolth and attempting to establish her priesthood as supreme in the city of Erelhei-Cinlu. After the fall of House Eilserv, its ally House Tormtor was relegated to minor status. When priestesses of the Revenancer offered an alliance, they were eager to listen. In return for this alliance, Erehe, consort of Tormtor's ruler Verdaeth, helped lock the Wand of Orcus away in Agathion. Kiaranasalee drowned Erehe in the River Styx, but allowed Verdaeth to resurrect him, without his former memories. Convinced the other noble houses held the secret of restoring his memories, Verdaeth started a war.
House Tormtor allied with Everhate, Aleval, and a large number of githyanki. The illithids of Dra-Mur-Shou allied themselves with the anti-Tormtor faction (houses Despana, Noquar, Kilsek, and Godeep), fearing the results of a Erelhei-Cinlu friendly to their hated enemies the githyanki. As chaos and savage battles overtook the Vault, hundreds of drow died, as did hundreds of their mercenaries.
The war was finally ended after Eclavdra abased herself before Lolth and underwent a horrible punishment to prove herself. Surviving unmarred, she made a pact with her goddess whose nature remains obscure. In reward, Lolth intervened personally to end the war. Though turning her concentration to this conflict cost the Demon Queen of Spiders her holdings in Geoff and Sterich, the war was ended definitively. House Eilserv was reinstated in power and House Kilsek was banished, replaced with House Vae.
The Return of Orcus
Recently (around 591 CY) Orcus somehow returned from the dead, retaking Thanatos, the layer Kiaransalee had made her own, and driving the goddess out after a time of conflict. Returning chastened to Lolth's Demonweb, she drank of the Spider Queen's venom, formally binding herself in servitude to the Queen of Spiders in exchange for her forgiveness and sanctuary. As a sign of this, Lolth altered the last glyph of her name, changing the Drow Elvish glyph lee to the homonym li, signifying enslavement. Now she is Kiaransali in all texts and inscriptions.
Currently, Kiaransali lairs in the fortress of Kandelspire on the Prime Material world of Guldor, which was conquered by Lolth some decades ago. Her religion no longer claims any authority that does not derive from Lolth, though some of her worshippers still harbor resentments.
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Lady of the Dead, The Revenancer, The Vengeful Banshee, The Pitiless Dowager
Goddess of slavery, undead, vengeance, and necromancy
Demigoddess
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Domains: Arcana, Chaos, Death, Drow, Evil, Madness, Pestilence, Retribution, Undeath
Symbol: Female drow hand wearing many silver rings
Kiaransalee (pronounced KEE-uh-ran-sa-lee) is the drow deity of both vengeance and the undead. She is called upon by those seeking retribution, the dark arts, or to prolong life. Kiaransalee is also the divine sponsor of the drow slave trade in all its varied aspects. She appears as a sinuous drow female wearing only silver jewelry and black silk veils. Her only obvious weapon is her curved dagger, but her long, sharp fingernails are just as dangerous, and her touch is said to be as cold as that of a lich. This goddess has flirted with madness, even thinking to defy her queen. But Lolth's power is inexorable, and Kiaransalee has taken of the queen's venom, returning once more to sanity and servitude. The symbol of Kiaransali is a hand of a female drow with three silver rings on each finger and one on the thumb, with the entire image surrounded by the silver strands of a spiderweb.
Kiaransalee's ascension as a dark goddess of evil predates even the banishment of Araushnee from the Seldarine, but the Lady of the Dead has long been an unwilling vassal of the Queen of Spiders, capable of only small acts of rebellion (such as assisting the elven herione Kethryllia in rescuing her beloved from Lolth's demesne). Kiaransalee was once mortal, a powerful dark elven necromancer-queen on a world known as Threnody. The Revenancer was named drow and banished by her husband, the king of Threnody, for her unholy experiments on the once-living. Kiaransalee fled with a small group of followers who she then transformed into undead servitors to ensure their loyalty. The Lady of the Dead continued her unholy experiments in secret for centuries before raising an army of undead to exact her vengeance. In the wake of the Revenancer's army, Threnody was a dead world, and the architect of its destruction fled with her unthinking servants into the Abyss, where she eventually assumed a measure of divine power herself, to escape the wrath of the Seldarine.
Only in recent memory has Kiaransalee achieved a measure of independence from the Spider Queen, a result of a successful attack on a rival deity long resident in the Abyss. Not too many years ago, Kiaransalee wrested Thanatos, a cold plane of ice, thin air, and a black, moonlit sky known as the Belly of Death, from Orcus, the former Abyssal lord of the undead, in revenge for some long-forgotten slight. Although she lacked the power to eliminate the very memory of Orcus from the minds of the multiverse after killing the Prince of the Undead, Kiaransalee magically erased the name of the late Abyssal lord wherever and however it had been recorded. With her foe slain and his corpse adrift in the Astral Plane, the Lady of the Dead slew all the servants and proxies of Orcus (save one, whom she accepted into her own service) and hid the legendary Wand of Orcus where none could ever find it, or so she thought.
Unfortunately for Kiranslee, Orcus had Joker Immunity, and as the shadowy undead-god Tenebrous, he still schemed to return to life, and eventually retrieved his wand. While his attempt to return to life as a full-on god was foiled by a band of meddling adventurers, he was eventually resurrected once more as the Demon Lord he once was, and promptly reclaimed his throne. Kiranslee is remembered mostly as a temporary seat-warmer for the layer, but be warned that she still isn't dead, and nobody holds a grudge like Kiranslee.
Deity of Human Origin: Or rather, Deity of Drow Origin. Kiaransalee was once mortal, a powerful dark elven necromancer-queen from another plane, who achieved godhood after fleeing into the Abyss.
God Save Us from the Queen!: In her mortal life, Kiaransalee was a queen on a world called Threnody who performed unholy experiments on her subjects until she was discovered and banished by her husband.
Mad Goddess: Drow believe that Kiaransalee was driven mad by returning from death as a god so many times, but her followers aren't discouraged by this assessment. Despite her madness, her actions are guided by a deep and devious cunning, a trait that drow attach more importance to than they do to sanity.
Meaningful Rename: On the world of Oerth, after the drow civil war, Kiaransalee's name was changed to Kiaransali. The final glyph of her name was altered in all texts and inscriptions, and her liturgy was abridged to conform to more acceptable doctrines.
Necromancer: Kiaransalee is the drow goddess of the undead and necromancy. Kiaransalee can command absolute loyalty from any undead creature within 100 yards of her that is not of semidivine or divine status, and she can animate any corpse she touches. Drow who practice necromancy turn to Kiaransalee for guidance and for protection from undead. Some of her most fervent followers seek out the secret of attaining undeath for themselves. Kiaransalee favors them by bringing them back as undead, but unlike other gods of similar sort, Kiaransalee doesn't offer the undeath of lichdom but a lowly existence as a banshee, a revenant, or a wight. She also took over Orcus's layer of the Abyss while he was dead for a while in 2nd edition.
I Love the Dead: A major requirement for joining her (female-only) priesthood is to perform sexual acts with the undead.
Resurrective Immortality: The Revenancer is believed to have returned from death over and over again. Drow see Kiaransalee as the patron of vengeance because she is said to have died and returned from death to get her revenge, bringing an army of the dead back with her. However, her numerous resurrections are believed to have been the cause of her madness.
Revenge: Kiaransalee is the drow goddess of vengeance and is consumed by thoughts about it. She retains a clear memory of every slight or insult done to her, realm or imagined. Vengeance is the aspect of Kiaransalee that appeals to most drow, because it becomes a necessity in every ambitious drow's life, usually more than once.
Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Kiaransalee, at least in her identity of Kiaransali, is also the drow goddess of slavery and the divine sponsor of the drow slave trade in all its varied aspects. Clerics of Kiaransalee often work as slavers, and occasionally as torturers or executioners. They commonly work their slaves to death and then animate the corpses so they may continue to serve. They keep their other servants in a state as close to slavery as they can manage, and withhold wages for the slightest offense.
The Starscream: The Lady of the Dead has long chafed under Lolth's suzerainty, and only the Spider Queen's overwhelming strength has kept Kiaransalee's long-planned vengeance in check.
Where I Was Born and Razed: Kiaransalee destroyed all life on her home world of Threnody to exact her vengeance against her husband for banishing her.
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